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Public health students get lesson in fad diets

Students presenting a project at the front of a class with a projection screen behind them.

Students in a public health nutrition course present their fad diet during a “Shark Tank”-style competition. Photo: Douglas Levere

By DAVID J. HILL

Published April 17, 2023

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“There is a lot of bad information out there about nutrition, and it’s going to require creativity and new ideas to make sure that reliable, evidence-based information stands out. The public’s health depends on it. ”
Adam Graczyk, clinical assistant professor
Department of Community Health and Health Behavior

For his public health nutrition course this spring, Adam Graczyk asked his students to work in teams to develop their own fad diets, drawing from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) dietary guidelines.

Senior Mitchell Orzell and his team decided to follow the rainbow to their proverbial pot of gold — the farmers market — for their diet, which won a “Shark Tank”-style competition Graczyk’s class held last month. Orzell’s team called theirs the “Regenbogen” diet, seeking inspiration from the German translation for the word rainbow.

Students spent the first few weeks of the semester reviewing several popular fad diets, identifying key components they all shared, while learning about the USDA’s dietary guidelines and their evidence-based recommendations. They then worked in teams to create a fad diet that incorporated aspects of other popular fad diets that make them marketable, such as branding and simple messaging around a core story.

Graczyk, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior, School of Public Health and Health Professions, instructed each team not to include classic fad diet pitfalls, like focusing on good and bad foods or eliminating certain food groups or focusing on weight loss and body image. In addition, the diets had to be based on the USDA guidelines. Each team was required to create a name, logo and branding story for their diet, along with sample dietary pattern examples.

“We were required to keep our diet plan within USDA dietary guidelines, so it could be a bit tricky trying to create something fun and interesting that still made sense,” says Orzell.

The project reaffirmed Orzell’s beliefs about fad diets. “That is to say that they are fads for a reason and are oftentimes not very sustainable,” he says. “In fact, I think I learned more about the difficulties that come with creating a flashy diet plan that people might actually be willing to try. In order to create a fad diet, you need to step away from conventional logic while still maintaining a plan that you think could bring tangible, if not sustainable, results.”

To give the students the tools necessary to develop their fad diets, Graczyk brought in two guest speakers: Natasha Allard, a PhD candidate in the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior, who provided two presentations on marketing and health communication, and Kelsey Wagner, the entrepreneurship training coordinator from Blackstone LaunchPad, who led workshops on public speaking and increasing engagement during presentations.

From left, AdamGraczyk, Jennifer Temple and Naomi McKay during the fad diet presentations.

From left: Course instructor Adam Graczyk and judges Jennifer Temple and Naomi McKay, who assessed the feasibility of students' fad diets during the “Shark Tank”-style competition. Photo: Douglas Levere

In March, Graczyk held a “Shark Tank”-style competition where each team pitched their diet to their classmates and two “sharks” — Jennifer Temple, professor in the Department of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences at UB and Naomi McKay, associate professor of psychology at SUNY Buffalo State University — who judged them on the feasibility of the diet.

The Regenbogen diet was the winning entry, and it was inspired by Orzell’s own weight-loss journey.

“As we were doing our research, it turned out that the rainbow diet already exists, so we elected to give it a more unique, eye-catching name. The official story, however, involves me following a rainbow to our proverbial pot of gold: the farmers market. After I used the diet to change my wicked eating habits, I developed the Regenbogen diet to help others,” Orzell says.

There are no restricted foods in the Regenbogen diet. Instead, the basic premise is to add nutrition foods into one’s current diet by consuming a serving of a certain color-coded fruit or vegetable each day throughout the week. For example, Monday is “red,” so a person would eat a bell pepper and some strawberries. An orange and a carrot would be good choices for “orange” Tuesday. The pattern continues to Sunday, where people are encouraged to use up their leftovers by making a fruit salad or frittata.

“The idea here is that by creating a non-restrictive dieting approach, we can increase compliance with the diet and hopefully begin to replace some of the added sugars, processed carbs and refined foods common in the typical American diet,” Orzell says. An added benefit comes from supplementing more key micronutrients that are found in fruits and vegetables.

For the rest of the semester, the class is working as a collective team to develop a complete lifestyle plan based on the USDA guidelines while incorporating stress reduction, intuitive eating and movement — all structured around the winning diet.

It’s all being written and edited by the students, and will be published as an e-book at the end of the semester, for 99 cents. Any money generated from sales will be donated to the National Eating Disorders Association.

“What I hope they get out of the project is that communicating nutrition information to a general audience is not easy, but that shouldn’t stop them from trying,” Graczyk says. “There is a lot of bad information out there about nutrition, and it’s going to require creativity and new ideas to make sure that reliable, evidence-based information stands out. The public’s health depends on it.”

Adds Orzell: “I think this was a good exercise for better understanding the inner workings of fad diets, and how to better inform ourselves and others on American dieting culture.”